The Bard and His Bathroom Humor

Tonight in the car, I heard Ian crooning, from the far back of the mini-van, a sweet, timeless melody that my grandfather used to sing. It was that Olde Englishe ditty "Oh dear, what can the matter be... Johnny's too long at the fair." I was moved to hear the next generation singing such a wholesome, traditional song that I used to hear, as a child, from one of my own forebears, so of course I tuned into the musical outburst. And suddenly I was a bit surprised...

Ian was singing the right melody, and with that timeless heave-ho-ish folksy spiritedness, but the words were significantly different. It took me awhile to figure out that he was actually singing about senior citizens stuck in the commode, but that was exactly what he was doing. This is the closest I can provide to a transcription of his performance, with transliterations to represent the poignant preschooler touch of his own pronunciation:

"Dear, Oh, what can the matter be?

Seven old ladies are stuck in the laba'try*

Dey've been in dere from Sunday to Saturdy,

Nobody knew dey were dere."

[The song continued for another stanza and then returned to the hard chorus transcribed above.]

*labat'ry is a rendition of "lavatory" where the "o" gets swallowed, as in English pronunciation, but then the "v" turns into a "b" because a six-year-old is singing it.

I know he didn't make it up, but the relish with which he sang the song - several times over - is certainly his own. And there's nothing like the combination of the folk-song hardy lilt, combined with a conscious all-American twant, further enhanced by a six-year-old's handling of the words themselves.

(February 23, 2010)